Sengoku Basara/Victorious Review

“Samurai it’s crazy!”

I first saw Sengoku Basara about a month or two ago. I’d read a lot about it from TVTropes, and I’d seen plenty of memes referring to this as one of the craziest rule-of-cool run TV shows ever written. I stopped watching about 3 episodes in, and started watching last week when I was bored at work. Since then I’ve made my way through about half of season one and gotten a really good feeling for the series as a whole. I figured this would be a good series to get started writing again (got one for VicTORIous on the way) and get posted on the site.

For those of you not in the loop, Sengoku Basara is an anime based off of a video game line that is loosely based off of the Sengoku period of feudal Japan. And I mean “very loosely.” Like, in the same way “the Ultimate Battle for Ultimate Destiny” is based off of world history. Though all the characters were in fact real historical characters during the period, pretty much everything else in the show was taken to extreme levels.

Most of the story deals with various warlords vying for supremacy of feudal Japan in a somewhat mystical setting, with warriors frequently engaging in battles that culminate in Technicolor dragon-shaped thermonuclear explosions miles wide in every direction. The cast is very colorful and has their own little…quirks, if one can call them that. The story mostly focuses on feudal warlord Masamune Date, the “One Eyed Dragon of Oshu,” and the general of Takeda Shingen’s army, Yukimura Sanada. But plenty of screen time is also given to many other feudal warlords, such as the very effeminate Lord Kenshin and his stripperific female ninja lover who gets orgasms every time he touches her hand, or villain antagonist Nobunaga’s brother-in-law Lord Azai, or even Lord Honda Tadakatsu, the series’ trademark living gundam. Yes, you read right. The series has a feudal samurai gundam.

If the bright explosions and absurd-sounding cast didn’t give it away, the series is pretty much a meme factory. The first two minutes of the show has in fact become an ascended meme for Masamune Date’s awesome gratuitous English. The aforementioned Masamune Date is well known for wielding six katanas at once as his personal weapon, and Nobunaga’s cape happens to be twice as efficient at killing people as his shotgun. And then there's also Yukimura getting repeatedly punched in the face by his Lord as a form of training. For the record, they love each other like father and son. Seriously. Also, there’s a living gundam with his own launch bay. I feel as though I can’t emphasize that enough.

Story wise, the show has a plot that’s actually surprisingly complex given that it’s pretty much just meant to deliver solid awesomeness to your screen and leave your jaw hanging from the absurdity. That’s not to say it’s a great plot. It stays true to a lot of the Bushido style idealism that was rather common during the era, with honoring alliances being a major factor in the story. There’s legitimate conflict and forward movement, and the plight of the characters is interesting enough to warrant some emotional investment. But the plot also doesn’t really overreach and always focuses on moving the story forward…for the most part. There are a couple snags and somewhat pointless threads that get caught up every now and then, but ultimately they don’t detract that much from the overall show. If rated on the intricate Japanese feudal plot scale of one to ten, with ten being the Tale of Genji and one being asian porn, this would definitely get about a 5 or 6.

Another area where the show suffers is character development. The villain antagonist isn’t really revealed until episode 4. Until then, you just have a bunch of crazy looking Samurai fighting each other. Worse yet, there wasn’t much motivation besides “CONQUER JAPAN!” with no indication or differentiation between warlords except their crazy costumes/voice actors. It makes it very hard to really care about any of the warlords for the first couple of episodes, which sort of makes it a wash. Of course, the arrival of Nobunaga changes all of that. The first couple of episodes are pretty much a bunch of battles loosely strung together between random factions until the characterization really begins. This was when I first lost interest in the story, because it was just kind of messy, bright, and colorful.

Fortunately, once he finally appears things really start to pick up. The show gets a new focus, which is very helpful, and the intricacies of the plot start to develop. Almost every character develops more personality, which is very nice. Individuals I had no interest in at the start of the series become much more fun to watch as time goes on because I actually saw their motivations and what drove them to action.

Ultimately, the story may not be stellar, but I do feel it does a pretty decent job of connecting viewers with the characters. This approach is probably what works most in the series’ favor, since the characters are the biggest factors in whether or not you’ll like the show. The action sequences, while very pretty and really cool (perhaps some of the best in anime) wouldn’t have kept me around if the whole of the series is just a confusing mess of random violence.

Overall, if you’re in the mood for an action-packed show about battle samurai that does a bit more than pay lip service to the story, I recommend Sengoku Basara. The story may have its ups and downs, and the whole thing may have a slow start, but give it about 3 episodes and the payoff will be pretty good.

Victorious

Alright, most of my beloved readers will probably turn away now by simple virtue of this being…well…a teen/tween girl show. And feel free, after I explain myself. Victorious is the most recent of a series of shows all written and produced by the well known producer Dan Schneider. In case you aren’t familiar, Dan Schneider was the producer for classic kid shows like “All That,” “The Amanda Show,” and above all others “Kenan and Kel,” my favorite show growing up as a kid. In fact, “Kenan and Kel” was ultimately what motivated me to seek out a more recent Dan Schneider show. It’d been a long time since I had seen a show by him, since I started getting into stuff like Toonami (R.I.P., you’ll be sorely missed) at about the time “All That” and “the Amanda Show” finally quit out. With such fond memories of the hijinks of the show’s stars, I was curious to see what Schneider was up to.

My options for recent shows were kinda limited, however. There was “Zoey 101,” but I’d rather cut off my own hand than watch anything involving Britney Spears or her younger sister. There was iCarly, which was a legitimate consideration, but “Victorious” was pretty much just came out, so what better option is there for how Schneider had changed than something that was literally being updated live as we speak? Course, there were only about 8 episodes total released, so in the end I started watching both Victorious and iCarly as a point of comparison. Ultimately, this is what I came up with, so enjoy the read.

Victorious focuses on the life of Tori Vega, played by Victoria Justice. Tori gets transferred over to Hollywood Arts (an arts school, if you didn’t catch on) after she replaces her sister Trina in a play and displays enough talent to catch the attention of…whoever makes admissions decisions at the school. She ends up quickly developing a small group of friends who form the core of the show, the entirety of the cast more or less. The lineup (pictured below) consists of nerd Robbie and his puppet Rex, genki girl Cat, older sister Trina, the titular Tori Vega, laid back musician Andre, libby punk girl Jade, and Jade’s boyfriend and laid back cool guy Beck.

If you noticed anything at all about the cast, it’s the eye candy. Those are some very pretty people. And before you ask, when I first saw the show and noticed how good looking they were the first thing I did was Wikipedia the stars to know just how awkward the situation is. Good news is not only are most of the stars legal, but (for me, at least) they also all fall under the “Divide By Two Plus Seven” rule, so it’s not even technically creepy for me to think of them as eye candy. Gotta love technicalities.

Man I'd tap that so hard...wait, is that a giant cupcake?! I'm in love!

Attractiveness aside, the actresses do have a fairly impressive pedigree. Two of them were actually a part of a Broadway play together before. I’m referring to Elizabeth Gilles (Jade West) and Ariana Grande (Cat), who were both part of the play “13,” which has something to do with something about a bunch of 13 year olds and the Jewish manhood celebration thing…I really didn’t look into it that much. Victoria Justice has been around, having been a cast member in “Zoey 101” and was in the iCarly movie “iFight Shelby Marx.” I couldn’t tell you anything about these roles, since neither is as glamorous as a Broadway role and I haven’t seen anything relating to the other two to comment, but honestly she’s pretty good in the show. She doesn’t overact, which I wasn’t really expecting. Ariana Grande actually has a tendency to overact more than any other member of the cast, though as the token genki girl that’s pretty much inevitable I suppose. Everyone else does a passable job, though I’m not the best judge for that sort of thing.

Also, diggin' the attitude on this one. Right, back to reviews!

In terms of story and plot…it’s a tween show. Expect a fair share of drama and “power of friendship” moments. There’s actually pretty much nothing remarkable about the show’s story save some of the crap that they get past the radar and some added bonuses throughout. I mean sure, the characters are decent, but I get the distinct impression that if you’ve seen a family friendly kid drama show you can expect to have seen everything Victorious has to offer so far. It’s akin to how most shonen ultimately play out in a similar fashion. If you’ve seen DBZ, you’d pretty much know the plot progression style of “Bleach” and “Ruroni Kenshin.” I wouldn’t consider it a strike against the show, but it certainly doesn’t work in its favor either. Execution is ultimately what saves a series like this, but execution isn’t really all that remarkable either. Schneider succeeds in telling a story, but that’s really all he accomplishes.

The show is light on humor and heavy on canned laughter, which is rather unfortunate. I dislike canned laughter a lot. I don’t really want to be told what is and is not supposed to be funny. If it’s funny, I’ll laugh. But when you make a joke that I don’t find funny, the canned laughter doesn’t do anything besides point out that you failed at making me laugh. Western television in general overuses canned laughter too much. The humor is a bit juvenile, and really isn’t very clever for the most part, but given the audience it’s kind of expected. What I really do like is the stuff they sneak by. I’ve never seen homosexuality referenced so blatantly in a kid’s show before. I’m referring specifically to Cat telling the group about how she discovered the Sky Store catalogue while visiting her “Uncle and Uncle in San Francisco.” The show also kind of pays lip service to drugs more than I expected. In this case, it’s the theater professor Mr. Sikowitz and his addiction to coconut milk, which gives him “visions.” In one episode, Tori Vega incorporates a living bird into her performance while Sikowitz is enjoying his coconut milk. This results an exchange similar to this

*Sikowitz leans forward to whisper in Beck’s ear*
Sikowitz: “You see the bird too, right?”
Beck: “…yeah…”
Sikowitz: “Exxxxcelent…”

There’s other bits like that, most of which you can find in the “getting crap past the radar” page of TVTropes. It’s always fun to catch one.

In the end, the show isn’t all that great. But it doesn’t really have to be. Successful television programming created a series of niches in program scheduling that sort of exist unofficially, but they have to be there. Much like shonen that involve fighting an eternally increasing scale of bad guys, saving the world from certain doom every alternating Tuesday, and bad guys with various “final forms,” Victorious does a decent job of filling the “teenage drama girl” niche by creating likeable and interesting enough characters to warrant curiosity about the ins and outs of their lives. I’m mostly just thrilled that they’re so damn attractive. Still, while I very much doubt anyone here is interested in seeing such a show, one could do worse than “Victorious.” Try it out if you’re curious as to what passes off as a decent, if somewhat unremarkable, kid’s show.

And then there's this.